Digg Planning a Read/Write API

You may soon be able to "Digg This" from within your applications. The social news site's API has long been able to list stories and other data (our Digg API profile). Now it's looking to let developers add content programmatically.

"In forthcoming versions of the API, people will be able to not only read data, but also contribute data, too."

With write access to Digg, you could automate posting stories and incorporate it into a publishing system. Or, you might like to save a link once and have it go to Digg, your bookmark service and Twitter, for example. Digg's read/write API could allow anyone to create their own interface to Digg, which would also provide Digg itself with additional content.

Ever the developer-focused site, Digg is seeking comments on how its proposed API will work. Any API provider knows that its platform can only thrive with happy developers. The company recently allowed commercial use of the Digg API, meaning it can now help developers make money, which gives yet another reason to use its API.

The result of making developers happy? The community appears to be thriving. ProgrammableWeb lists 49 Digg mashups, including the popular DiggKiller.

About the author:Adam DuVander
-- Adam heads developer relations at Orchestrate, a database-as-a-service company. He's spent many years analyzing APIs and developer tools. Previously he worked at SendGrid, edited ProgrammableWeb and wrote for Wired and Webmonkey. Adam is also the author of mapping API cookbook Map Scripting 101.